


Any Other Choice

by Rachy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, General
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-24
Updated: 2012-06-24
Packaged: 2017-11-08 10:07:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/442043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rachy/pseuds/Rachy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nympadora Tonks fitted Hufflepuff. After all, there wasn't any other choice.</p>
<p>An examining of why Tonks was sorted into Hufflepuff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Any Other Choice

**Author's Note:**

> Any quotes (as indicated from underlying and italics) belong to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone or alternatively Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

_You might belong in Hufflepuff,  
Where they are just and loyal  
Those patient Hufflepuffs are true  
And unafraid of toil._  
~ The Sorting Hat

 

"HUFFLEPUFF!" The Hat proclaims to the Great Hall, and sighs quietly as Nymphadora tugs the Sorting Hat off her head, dropping it on the stool and stumbling down the steps as she scurries to her table.

It was not as though there was any other choice, for Nymphadora Tonks.

She was not one of the leftovers, who missed out on the other houses by her own sparkling merit. The only cunning the young girl had was in her will to not be in the house where so many of her mother's family had resided. She did not have the sparkling bravery and plain nerve for Gryffindor, nor the pure intelligence and slight whimsy for Ravenclaw, but she had loyalty. Bounds of loyalty. And she had determination.

It wasn't often that the Sorting Hat saw things quite as this. It sorted the girl into Hufflepuff, watched as she was applauded and welcomed so fully, in a way that she hadn't quite been before.

_"Her mother's that Bellatrix Lestrange's sister, you know, that one who did those awful things to poor Alice and Frank."_

_"Her father's a Mudblood."_

_"Her aunt's the young Malfoy's wife, young Lucius."_

_"By the love of Merlin, won't that child stop changing her nose and her hair and her eyes and oh, her Merlin-blessed mouth before she **freezes** like that."_

She charms her fellow students with a nervous smile and a twitch of her badger's nose before she knocks over her glass while shaking eager hands.

.

_For Hufflepuff, hard workers,  
Were most worthy of admission_

.

Hard working was perseverance, in a way. She caused too much giggling, took too much amusement in wearing her hair in quirky colours and was too clumsy to be called hard working. Her essays bore the marks of scorgifying charms and ink splashes, her hair striped proudly yellow and black at the Quidditch games she avidly watched, and the smile stayed bright on her face while being turned down with a solid **no** when she turns up at tryouts with a bruising eye and an eager hand wrapped around her broomstick.

She works hard and stays loyal to her House. She keeps a smile and the warmest laugh on her face when she's not named Prefect, and takes delight in pranking the new ones, all in good faith. She keeps her loyalty to her mother and to her father when she graduates and takes her Auror's testing. She works hard and stays true to her own little family and loyal to her cause. She takes up the mantle of the black sheep of the Blacks, as there is no one else who holds a claim who is not in Azkaban.

She works harder still when she hears of Voldemort's return. She perseveres. She is not stupid enough to disregard the threat as not being true, and she has grown up in the shadow left by his followers to know the truth behind the threat. It is her loyalty which drives her, to her mother, to the Order of the Phoenix, and her sense of justice and her knowledge of what is right when she battles against her uncle and aunt in the Ministry of Magic.

She gives herself more hard work when she falls in love with Remus Lupin, who tries to be brave and chivalrous and keep his nerve to not allow her in and to keep away from the ruin of his life and he is daring enough to sacrifice a return of his happiness for a life of misery. She works hard, she perseveres and she stays just and true and loyal to a man who has lost so much loyalty, and her nerve pays off in the end. Her justice and truth and loyalty bring her her death, but her hard work, loyalty and her love for others create a legacy and not her downfall.

She didn't have the brains for Ravenclaw, to be logical and rational and to think everything through and to have the fullest and uttermost belief in what she thought was true.

She didn't have the outlandish bravery and nerve and daring and honour and riskiness to be a Gryffindor, not entirely, because her belief in loyalty and just and truth are stronger and she believes in perseverance too. 

She isn't a Slytherin because of her family, and because she has a drive and not ambition and it is hard work and not cunning that will get her there.

She is a Hufflepuff, down to the end.

She works hard to achieve her career, to win and keep the man she loves and to fight in a war with an impossible outcome and to give her child a future no matter the cost.

She stays just and true in her career, in her love, in her friendship. She perseveres through her Auror training, through her battles with love.

She stays loyal to her family, to her friends, to the Order of the Phoenix and to the right side. 

She has worked hard, she has persevered and it is the choice between being just and true and loyal to her husband or to her child or to her friends and her family and to the remnants of the Order and memories of men and women better and braver than her. 

She places her hope in trust, hard work and perseverance, in the perseverance of the hope and loyalty and truth and justice she has lived her life by, and hopes they will be enough for Teddy's life.


End file.
